In the annals of Westeros history, one family looms larger than all the others: the Targaryens. With their sibling marriage, their dragons, and their tendency towards insanity, they managed to rule the continent for a surprisingly long amount of time.
In both the original novels and in the television series, however, there are more than a few things that don’t quite add up and that still make no sense, even as the television series has concluded (though the last two novels are nowhere in sight).
Why They Insisted On Sibling Marriage
One of the things that has always been distinctive about the Targaryens is their practice of having brothers marry sisters.
Although supposedly this is to maintain blood purity, surely they would have eventually realized that the constant intermarriage of brothers to sisters would have profound consequences, both for the family and for the nation as a whole. Being stubborn people though, it’s very like them to continue to do something even when it doesn’t entirely make sense.
They’re So Bad At Controlling Each Other
Time and again throughout Westeros history, the Targaryens have been torn apart by internal strife. More than that, though, is the fact that they are curiously unwilling or unable to control one another.
Rhaegar couldn’t or wouldn’t really control his father; Dany couldn’t control or even mitigate her brother Viserys’ temper tantrums; the list goes on. For a family supposedly trained to rule, they prove disastrously bad at maintaining order at home.
They Remain Loyal Even Past The Point Of Stupidity
Loyalty can be a marvelous thing, the glue that binds together both families and nations. For the most part, the Targaryens have this particular trait in spades, particularly in the current generation. As just one example, Dany remains loyal to Viserys far past the point where it would have made sense for her to cut him loose.
What’s more, even though he was horrendously cruel to her, she still named one of her dragons after him.
Why They Didn’t Notice The Dragons Were Breeding To Be Weak And Small
In both the novels and the series, it’s made clear that the once-mighty dragons have begun to grow smaller and smaller.
Although dragons were the source of Targaryen power, it doesn't seem that they did anything to understand or affect the dwindling size of dragons, both physically and in the overall population of dragons.
Why Some Sane Targaryens Defended Their Insane Brethren From Other Sane Ones Trying To Stop Them
It didn’t take long for a particularly pernicious strain of madness to begin settling in among some members of the Targaryen family.
This wouldn’t be a problem if some of the saner members of the family were willing to step in and control their unruly kin but, alas, that stubborn loyalty almost always kept them from doing the right thing for both their family and their country, with dreadful consequences for all concerned.
Why They Did Such A Bad Job Of Ensuring The Loyalty Of Practically Anyone
For a family that supposedly held all of Westeros in control, the Targaryens have repeatedly shown that, as it turns out, they’re not actually that great at controlling their various vassals.
Perhaps it’s because they showed themselves so unable or unwilling to control the members of their own family, they seemed to inspire everyone around them to rebel and scheme against them. For a family whose motto is “fire and blood,” such a fundamental weakness doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Why Didn’t They Bring More Knowledge From Valryia?
It’s well-known that the Targaryens brought many things to Westeros with them that would come to be of great value, including and especially Valyrian steel. What’s more, it was reportedly a Targaryen that predicted the Doom that destroyed Valyria.
This being so, it doesn’t quite make sense that the Targaryens wouldn’t have brought more of this knowledge with them to Westeros, including and especially the knowledge of how to predict their own downfall (as well as how to make more Valyrian steel).
Why There Are So Few Physical Signs of In-Breeding
Anyone who has studied European history and royalty knows that prolonged periods of inbreeding among close relatives produces a host of physical and health problems (one need look only at the Habsburgs and their jaws to see this).
It thus doesn’t make sense that the Targaryens, aside from their congenital madness, should show so few signs of physical decline, especially considering that they decided that siblings repeatedly marrying one another was a good idea.
Why There Aren’t More Cadet Members of the Family
With some exceptions, the Targaryens were a remarkably fruitful dynasty. There have also been numerous instances in which junior members of the family, and some bastards, have established their own houses.
However, there aren’t nearly as many of these as one might expect, considering how many Targaryens there were to reproduce and how many members of the family there were at a given time. Even the decimation caused by the Dance of the Dragons doesn’t entirely account for the lack of cadet branches of the family.
Why Is Robert Never Mentioning The Fact He Is A Targaryen?
Anyone who has studied the history of Westeros knows that part of the reason Robert was able to not only start a rebellion, but also seize the throne, was because he could claim Targaryen blood.
However, in neither the novels nor the television series does he make as much of this fact as one might expect, especially for a man attempting to maintain control over a very volatile kingdom with lots of people thinking about seizing his throne (including an exiled Targaryen).